A company owned by a former chairman of the San Andrea school board raked in more than €3 million from works at the school over a number of years, an independent investigation into claims of financial mismanagement has found.

An inquiry into allegations of wrongdoing at the school concluded that several of the claims made by its former assistant head, Trevor Templeman, were unsubstantiated.

Templeman’s lawyers, however, have latched on to the €3 million figure that emerged from an investigation by an audit firm, calling it a blatant conflict of interest that merits further investigation.

Judge David Scicluna’s own 73-page inquiry report, commissioned by the Mġarr school board last year, also pointed to a historically pervasive attitude of bullying and arrogance, and warned that “a school cannot be run as a fiefdom”.

He singled out top management for failing to take disciplinary action in numerous situations, the school said.

The report also raised various red flags over how the private school was managing its finances.

The retired judge compiled his report after hearing 65 witnesses and examining numerous documents. He also made a list of 30 recommendations to promote accountability and better governance at the school.

“ A school cannot be run as a fiefdom

Templeman on Wednesday welcomed the findings of the independent inquiry, saying it confirmed what he had been saying from the outset. He also welcomed the findings by Big Four audit firm PWC into his claims of financial mismanagement.

San Andrea did not publish the full copy of the Scicluna inquiry and instead sent out a press release summarising the report findings to the media.

Parents were given a redacted version of the two reports due to data protection considerations.

It was last October when Templeman went public with a series of claims of financial mismanagement to the tune of over €4 million.

He alleged that a former school chairperson made some €200,000 in “miscellaneous” transactions and that a former member of staff was paid €25,000 to keep quiet. He claimed there was also a questionable contract to rent a property belonging to a person linked to the school.

Templeman said he was supplied the information by an individual in the school’s senior management team.

The school said judge Scicluna’s report identified a list of inconsistencies and red flags over past cases of financial mismanagement.

It said it would be delving deeper into the matter to ensure proper structures are in place and to determine if there is scope for legal action. It did not elaborate.

The inquiry noted the clique like nature of the relationship between Templeman, former school head Stefania Bartolo, who resigned last week after having been on self-suspension, suspended assistant head Ruth Azzopardi, and past board chairman Kevin Spiteri.

PWC found that Spiteri’s company KJM Enterprise carried out the extensive works on the multipurpose hall and did refurbishment works.

KJM Enterprise made over €3 million from works at the school and San Andrea also rented a warehouse from him after he stepped down from his post as board chairman.

Spiteri testified that this sum was made over eight years and included the multipurpose hall, employees’ wages and materials, and that payment was always made against invoices.

Reacting to the conclusions, the present school board added: “This whole exercise has been an eye-opener where these situations threatened the very ethos of our school. It is thanks to the commitment of our excellent teachers and dedicated parents that San Andrea remains one of the best schools on the island.”

Reacting to both reports, Templeman said in a statement through his lawyers that they confirmed what he had been saying from the outset: that the school and its management “lead with a culture of bullying”, the same culture he had been subjected to and which left him no option but to resign.

His lawyers, David Bonello and Chris Said, said they had filed a case before the employment tribunal over their client’s “constructive dismissal”.

The case is still pending.

They pointed out that, in line with the terms and conditions imposed by the school when it commissioned its independent inquiry, the judge’s investigation did not delve into Templeman’s allegations of financial mismanagement but into the former assistant head and his actions.

“In fact in the engagement letter to the judge the school expressly prohibited the judge from investigating financial impropriety,” the lawyers said as they quoted the judge’s report as saying: “Excluded from the scope of this inquiry are allegations of financial impropriety.”

“It is interesting why the school had specifically excluded the financial impropriety when the matter which led to this report was the information put forward by our client.

“Our client notes that before informing the parents who willingly asked for this information, he had gone through all the normal school channels but was met with blank faces and the bullying increased,” the lawyers wrote.

They added that had Templeman not alerted the parents about the situation, no investigation would have been carried out and none of the reports, conclusions and recommendations put forward by the judge and PWC would have seen the light of day.

In his statement, Templeman noted that the reports had not been fully published and the school had chosen to leak selected parts.

Although a probe into financial impropriety had been excluded from the investigation, the judge still made a recommendation on the school finances which were managed by Bartolo and Spiteri:

“All major donations received should be accurately and immediately registered and the relative receipts issued. Donors must be informed of the manner in which their donation has been used.”

“ All major donations should be registered

The judge also recommended that “receipts should be issued for donations for school activities held for charitable purposes, the beneficiary charity announced and the amount collected announced.”

Templeman also quoted the judge as recommending in his report that “Apart from a yearly budget the school should even move to preparing a draft budget for three to five years in the future… Ensure availability and proper keeping of guarantee documents associated with equipment purchased.”

He said Judge Scicluna also made recommendations regarding the general administration and appointment of staff: “The appointment of staff through calls for applications… Ensuring that staff selected have the proper qualifications… Transparency in the marking system used for appointment of staff enabling unsuccessful candidates to know the reasons for not being selected.”

“Our client welcomes the ‘summary’ of the report of the firm PWC which confirms the claims that he had originally put forward and which led to these reports, that the ex-chairperson of the school board, Kevin Spiteri through his company KJM Enterprises Limited, received no less than €3.16 million from the school.

“The same report also confirms that more than €100,000 had been passed on to Spiteri’s company without any trace or invoices,” the lawyers wrote.

The summary of the PWC report also confirmed that funds had been transferred from the school bank account to Spiteri’s company bank account after school hours, in the middle of the night and on the weekends.

“Our client notes that it was Kevin Spiteri himself as the chairperson of the school board who had access to transfer such funds to his own company. Apart from this being a blatant conflict of interest, this surely merits further investigation,” they said.

They added that the accounts for 2021 and 2022 “should give a clearer picture of further transfers between the school and Kevin Spiteri’s company.”